I was a Tarantino wannabe. And possibly still will be for some time.

I got the 15'th anniversary edition of Reservoir Dogs a few days ago and I'm listening to critics commentary on spesific scenes. They said many things which made me realize it but I'll skip to the main one. There are many who say that Tarantino's movies are shallow and only made because it's cool but his is not a fact. The fact is that because there were so many imitators after reservoir dogs saying "Oh ok i'm gonna be cool now maybe i'll refrence the sixties or maybe the eighties?" tarantino does not refrence every song and write all the dialouge in his movies to be cool, he does it because that's who he is. Those are the songs he would listen too, those are the things that he would say while the imitators only put it in because it's cool looking or sounding.

This got me thinking real hard and made me feel like a friggin hack for wanting to be like him. I then thought about robert rodriguez and how he's his best friend and i used to think well hell if he's his best friend then why don't he take a page or two out of Tarantino's book and make movies like he does?". well now i know why. How wrong i was and how bad i felt when i realized all this too. I've been writing a follow up on my reality/fiction short (tarantino inspired) with the J.P. character and i got to thinking about my writing future. and my problems with writing consistently on one main project and i realized i have to actually LEARN THE CRAFT. I have to learn how to set up characters, how to set up scenes, how to set up a confrontation,,, basicly learn the recipe to a good movie script. and then make my own style out of it. put in refrences to movies i love, songs i like, things i would say. not just because they sound cool.

I do enjoy some story tellers these days more so than others (Kevin Smith) but imitating his style is impossible because he is a great writer but lacks in telling a complete story throughout but I don't fault him and love his films nonetheless.

You first have to look at your own writing and come up with your weaknesses and strengths to build a good project.

Some people just pick up and write and might come up with something good.

I enjoy the over thinking method because if you are not sure you want to stick with it, over thinking yourself will turn you off or onto your own project. A few of my screenplays just came from my love of genres and others were inspired by true events that happened to me or a friend.

If you're a Tarantino wannabe, then you should really watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Odd choice? Not at all. I watched this one last night, and found Tarantino homeaged that film in every film of his I've seen to date -- kill Bill especially. You can't be Quintin Tarantino without that one under your belt. It' a 3 hour spaghetti western. Not a western fan, you say? Well, who cares? I'm not either, but it's like number 7 on IMDB's top 250 (the title's in Italien), which means if you're a move fan (and screenwriters should be movie fans), you should watch it.

I've owned the special edition of the good, the bad and the ugly for over a year. along with all the other sergio leone westerns. And I've seen them all countless of times!

The thing I don't get, is that there's always so much talk about sticking to a formula when writing. Like Kevan's post above where everything has to be done this way within these amount of page numbers. and producers put so much emphasis on staying within thee strict guidelines.

However, I love Tarantino's movies, a lot of them are among my favorites, and I love his writing style, and apparently lots of others feel the same.

I think that it's the complete opposite of what Alfred Hitchcock has said (even though I'm a big fan Mr. Hitchcock ) But I think we need more sriters like Tarantino, who aren't necessarily copying him, but break from this mold that we're supposed to be such slaves to. I think more people who write similar to Tarantino, and prefer that style of writing, should get more opportunities.

But I don't like Tarantino because his stuff is "cool". In fact I don't like a lot of the things that he references. ie. Elvis I'm not a fan of, Kung Fu movies I'm not a fan of, Madonna, etc. But I think he's a great writer and his stuff is more about capturing real life and interesting conversations. I wouldn't so much as call them "cool" as I would just interesting, raw, real, uninhibited, and just entertaining, which is what cinema should be at the end of the day.

I was just watching Pulp Fiction a couple days ago, and it occured to me that Tarantino doesn't have much story in ANY of his screenplays. It's more of just a combination of essentially a bunch of short films put together. Pulp Fiction has absolutely no story. There's just minutes and minutes of conversation. ie the foot massage scene, Jackson talking about why he doesn't eat pork, hell he made a whole scene on just accidentally shooting someone's head. And Butch's story is just thrown into the mix, and would seem "out of place" to someone reading it for the first time. All his elements have NOTHING to do with any particular story, and anyone who would read his script around here would've probably said that he should just cut the conversation out or he has too much dialogue. Yet Pulp Fiction is my favorite movie though.

Same with Reservoir Dogs, when he starts off the movie with them just chit chatting for minutes about essentially nothing. And Kill Bill is TWO films about just getting revenge on people. But I'm not knocking him for this, because I love his films.

I'm just wondering, why, if everybody's so in love with Tarantino, how come everybody just repeats "you gotta stick to the structure" like parrots, when it can workd otherwise and why companies don't try to bring in new and fresh writers who aren't like everything else out there? Why is it so demonized for people to write against the structure, yet apparently people enjoy it? If Tarantino was just starting out and was on here he would be criticised for his technique in not following the holy structure of screenwriting, which I think is his strength, NOT a weakness. That's why there's no originality anymore, people should be able to write freely and make the best and most interesting story they can.

This is where one of the older ones makes a speech about "when you're new..." etc. I know I've heard it a million times, but it's bound to come out at some point, and I would predict either Phil or Kevan will head it. Granted, they won't now that I've said something, but if I hadn't one or both of tem would be on that speech.

My opinion (and you can take it however you want to take it) is that you can write whatever you want to write and if you write a killler logline and synopsis and get someone to read it (and they will), it will sell. There are horror stories galore of readers red-flagging somethin and tossing the script. Yes, there are a lot of scripts out there, good and bad, but studios need this commodity to survive, so really, all you have to do is get someone interested enough to read it, and if it's good enough, then sold.

Some competitions have rules to follow. Some producers may have submission rules to follow. But generally, if you format it correctly and tella good story, you'll be fine. I've found some great stories in some scripts that look like trash. If those writers cleaned them up, they might have a prayer.

Why do I say this? Because loglines sell more than screenplays do. If you have a concept that someone wants, they're sold before they read the script. This means your killer concept will cause al kind of problems to be overlooked. How 'bout that? How often does that happen? Pretty often, I hear.

Interesting George. it's wierd that when someone posts a badly formatted script on here he gets flamed to a crisp. then again that script might be bad in the first place so just forget that is said that.

in reply to Sryknows.

i completely agree and i aim to be like that. but i'm new (i'm gonna do the "i'm new" speech) and i have really little idea of what i'm doing when it comes to structure. if i just write and write i'd wound up with a movie with two huge scenes of dialouge. and then i'm screwed and it'll take three hundred year to fix it up and that's just al together frustrating. and-- well you get my point.

just wanna learn the proper way of writing and THEN i'll write my way

Yeah, I wasn't attacking you Alfred Hitchcock, so you didn't HAVE to defend yourself. by the way, what' your real name, I feel weird calling you Alfred Hitchcock, or is that your real name? It'd be cool if it was. But yeah, to some degree you have to just conform to the "acceptable" formatting guidelines but that comes with time. You get better at that the more you write. I didn't realize you were only 16. I'm only 20, but have learned a lot since the year + I've been on here. But yeah, when I write it's almost ALL dialogue at first, and then I pretty much have to just keep throwing in pieces of description to make people happy. I don't think it should be that way, but whaddya gonna do? People won't read it unless you pretty it up, and I just don't think it should be that way is all. It should be readable, but I don't think that's the main priority is how much dialogue vs description and following the perfect three act structure and all that jazz. But I think everything is bass ackwards in Hollywood, and I think it's good to aspire to be like Tarantino, just as long as you're not copying him.

But I think Jordan might be right about the old vs new thing. I think the problem with that also is that all the people who are in control are the older ones, making all these laws and restrictions when it comes to writing and all. And it's bullshit that how much of your future just depends on your marketing skills rather than content. Everything's like that, even in the music industry, television, everything. And I really wanna know how Tarantino managed to get his foot in the door, cause all his movies if you read the loglines would sound just like every other mob movie ever made, but they're very different once you see the movie or read the script I should say. But all I know is that a lot of my favorite movies are the ones that have balls and defy the structure.

1. My name is Daniel Toemta (Daniel Tømta actually) and I live in norway. 16 years old, have the best taste in film ever because i love and enjoy pretty much everything. peronally own 800 titles and counting.

been thinking about changing the alfred hitchcock name actually. people are getting confused. where do i go to doo that?

2. check your PM.

3. Tarantino got his foot in the door via hi friend Lawrence Bender who went to acting class and handed the script reservoir dogs to his teacher who handed it to his wife who handed it to his friend who handed it to harvey keitel who gave tarantino a call.

What are you trying to say, Daniel? What is your point with all this talk about getting your foot in the door and Tarantino movies. Are you simply expressing your thoughts and your feelings? If so, why don't you get a MySpace or something? I just would like to know why you started this thread. I am also not attacking you, and I seriously hope you don't interpret it that way, but I just want to know where you're coming from with all this.


Cheers, Chismeister.

if you hadn't said you weren't attacking me i would have thought you did.

my point with it? really no constructive point. just posting my feelings to people who matter. you can't find you guys on myspace. i realized that i needed my own writing voice. a yound novice yould be told a thing like that but that doesn't mean he's learned it. i've now learned it.

To the new and old comment, here's a thought. Movies are a little over a hundred years old. Storytelling is ancient. As for the movies, every generation thinks they have new rules and such and it is their duty to break the old ones, but here's a news flash. Every generation does this and believes it, but in they end, they discover that the same old storytelling style works and as such, the best stories in the world are told pretty much the same way with few exceptions.

Once this generation "under 30" (which makes me laugh, since I'm 31 and you assert that I'm so much older than everyone else) gets the revolutionary stuff out of their system, they'll figure out that the techniques that have worked for centuries will work the best. Even those that appear to defy the structure still have structure to them.

Even Tarantino's films which appear to defy structure still have a basic storytelling structure to them. He is just creative in telling that story. Pulp Fiction is basically a character drama so the structure is centered around telling the stories of those characters. The stories interlock through the mob boss who calls the shots, hired everyone, and is married to Uma Thurman's character. He is the figure that all the stories have in common. It's still a carefully structured story. It just feels different because it's mixed up. From there, it's just situations allowing us to learn about the characters and see how they change.

No matter how revolutionary you want to be, you grew up with the movies you like and they all have a structure to them (ok, not all, but most), so you will inevitably settle into a structure to tell that story. Is it going to be a total black and white structure? No. There's no such thing. It will, however, be a strucutre that is based on centuries of storytelling styles.

And Daniel, the "I'm New" speech is also overused. I file it next to the "When you're new..." speech, and is a common retort when someone doesn't like the "When you're new" speech.

what-- whatever, i eeeeh--- am a little confused but don't bother trying to clear anything up for me. I've learned everything i need to know from this thread

One thing that I have learned is that you should never try to be the next (insert name here).  There's hundreds of people with the same idea and none of them will be as good as the original.

I think Tarantino is one of the best writer/firmmaker out there today but there's no way I'd want to be the next one.  I stand a better chance being the original Phil.


Phil

Well said, Phil. Cheers. I've decided to get out them old fishing boots and be the next Cecil B. DeMille, though.